


The Snow Queen

by faerymorstan



Series: Snow Queen 'Verse [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sneedronningen | The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retellings, Hans Christian Andersen - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerymorstan/pseuds/faerymorstan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hans Christian Andersen's <i>The Snow Queen</i> is retold in 221Bs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bored

**Author's Note:**

> Part of [National Poetry Writing Month](http://www.napowrimo.net).
> 
> All my thanks to those who have encouraged this absolutely strange project. I am grateful for you.

Once upon a time, in an ordinary cottage, in an ordinary village, there lived two extraordinary men.

The first, Sherlock, was tall and dark-haired and, despite his thirty-three summers, unfinished. He had long since become master of his considerable intellect, but he had no such mastery of his considerable heart. To the contrary, he flew fast from all feeling in his constitution. If he wondered, from time to time, whether he might in fact fear emotion, he possessed syringes and solutions enough to spare him examining the issue at any length.

The second man was called John. A veteran of a faraway war, John was short and fair and old before his time: had tended the wounded, been shot, taken fever, been given up for dead. He had a scarred shoulder and a dodgy leg and a tendency to wake himself up shouting; he was at once patient and irritable and calm and concerned. Fierce despite his failings, he felt himself and Sherlock a pack, something dear to protect.

They lived, these two men, in mutual orbit, a trail of teacups and tobacco ash blazing behind them. They often traversed the dirt roads between villages to solve crimes intricate and gory, and they could have done so indefinitely but for one thing: Sherlock would do anything to stop himself being bored.


	2. Bet

The last day of winter. Day and night in balance, nearly; frost melting with sunrise. Sherlock watches icy fractals vanish from the window in the front room and sips at a mug of tea. Steam on his face; tannins; bergamot. Ceramic heats his palms warmer where chemicals and violin have left no calluses.

He wonders if he’s like this everywhere: sensate, but not quite.

He’s sure John can feel, wholly.

It frightens him, that gap. Leaves him wondering when John, who is not nearly so clever as Sherlock, will notice. What will happen when he does.

Creaking hinges, bare feet shuffling on wood floor and into the kitchen, small hand scratching at short hair: _Good morning, John._

_Morning, love. This tea mine?_

_Mmm._ Obvious. Honestly, John.

John wanders to Sherlock’s side, stares out the window, sips his tea. His eyes return again and again to his roses; Sherlock knows he’s fretting about pruning. John’s roses are the pride of the village, blossoms exploding and fading one after another all summer in a fragrant meteor shower: he needn’t fret.

A hand on his lower back. He leans toward John without thinking.

_Sherlock?_

_Mmm?_

_Who’s that?_

Walking up their path: a woman, her dress trailing behind her like black ice, her skin the untouched snow of the deep forest.

_A client, I bet._


	3. Beg

The woman sits in Sherlock’s chair and seems to fill the room. John brings her a steaming mug of tea; she takes it and raises an amused eyebrow. Without taking her eyes from his, she wraps one hand around the mug one long finger at a time.

The steam vanishes. The tea freezes solid. The clay cracks.

The woman’s smile never slips.

She sets the shards of cup aside. _I bring a challenge,_ she says through lips the blood red of poisonous berries.

Sherlock feigns indifference on the sofa, wills his features blank. _You’re not really called Irene, are you, Snow Queen?_

 _Tiresome things, names,_ she sighs. Eyes John: _Must he be here?_

 _I live here,_ John protests. The Snow Queen stares, and stares, and— _Oh, bloody hell. Fine._ He buries himself in coat and scarf and boots and growls his way out the door, woolen and angry, letting the cold air in.

 _Much better,_ says the Snow Queen. _Now. A challenge._

Sherlock resents how off-kilter he feels with John gone. _So you mentioned._

_A contest. My magic against your mind._

_If I win?_

_Freedom from the cold, for you and for your soldier. Warmth in the dead of winter for all your days._

_And if I lose?_

The Snow Queen smiles. _You shall come to my palace, craving mercy, and beg._


	4. Blows

No decision has ever been so simple: Sherlock should refuse her. He has nothing to prove: he is, beyond doubt, terribly clever; he receives ample custom from the villagers; he has managed despite himself to flutter into John’s good graces. His is a fine life, a better life than he deserves, and to accept the Snow Queen’s challenge would be to invite into it the gravest and most avoidable of troubles.

He looks around his cottage, stalling for time. Takes in the skull on the mantelpiece, the forest of glass decanters scattered over the hickory table in the kitchen, the cane leaning next to the door—John forgot it—may need his _vastus lateralis_ massaged come evening. _I have never begged for mercy in my life._

The Snow Queen may as well be a statue in her own honor, so still is she. _You will._

_I never._

_Three times you will beg, and I will relent and grant it you, and still you will know no relief._

Damn it, he will win. _I accept._

She draws a handful of shimmering powder from a pouch at her waist. Sherlock doesn’t flinch. _You aren’t afraid of my magic?_

_My confidence lies in the power of the mind._

_As does mine._ Sherlock’s eyes widen. _Sweet fool. My magic is my mind magnified,_ she says, and blows.


	5. Behind

Burning. Flames behind eyelids, abrasions to hidden skin, pain every time he tries to blink, like feathers bent from their true place. He gasps and chokes on the airborne grit. It’s cold, so cold, he can feel it inside him, in his lungs, _through_ his lungs, in his heart. It settles there, leaden, frigid.

The pain departs. The chill remains.

When he can see again, the Snow Queen has vanished.

Blinking, Sherlock looks around the cottage. Dark, dingy, the skull macabre, the glass vessels meaningless clutter, the cane John’s uselessness made form: how was Sherlock happy here?

No. Start again: John’s uselessness? Why would—Sherlock has never thought, not ever—

Oh.

Damn her.

She’s clever, the Snow Queen. To challenge Sherlock’s mind, she didn’t need to change his world: she only needed to change how he observed it.

Brilliant. Damn her all the same, but: brilliant.

Sherlock perches on his rubbish chair at the rubbish kitchen table and does a pointless titration until John limps in.

_She’s gone, I take it?_

Has his expression always been so vacant? His gait so halting? His posture so defeated?

Of course not. Illogical. John must be as compelling as he’s always been. Sherlock must use his mind to override his perceptions from now on.

 _She’s gone,_ he agrees, not mentioning the mess she’s left behind.


	6. Better

The spring is a struggle.

Every bud on every rose bush—every fawn browsing leggy in the garden—every sunshower scattering prisms in John’s hair—every client bearing baskets of blossoms and begging to borrow his brain—every pipe smoked to ash in the dewy dust—John’s every scent graze gaze crumpled jumper flicked paper clinked teacup—

Sherlock hates them all.

He can tell that John, hurt, lost, can tell. Went from being touched and treasured (if ignored intermittently) to tolerated.

Sherlock knows in his mind that nothing is different save himself, but his mind is no match for the ice in his heart. He wants it to be. Wants to force reason to override what he perceives.

He can’t, though. Defeat perception.

In June there is a flurry of Garridebs, or rather, there seems to be. Sherlock sorts it through and he and John find a counterfeiter and John’s thigh finds a bullet and John who never cries howls once, bleeds in the back of a hansom cab.

Sherlock feels nothing.

That night, thick with gauze and laudanum, John beckons Sherlock to his side. Presses Sherlock’s cheek to his own, eyes closed, and whispers, _You’ve not said anything, Sherlock, but you’ve not been right since her. Since the Snow Queen. But I will wait, you know. For as long as it takes. Until you’re better._


	7. Beaten

But he won’t get better, will he.

He waits for John’s snores, then flies down the lane to fetch the woman who tends the dead. The night is warm and soft. Fireflies drowse in their flights. Sherlock smells green leaves and red blossoms: John’s, maybe. Such effort to care about such things.

He comes to the cottage and knocks on the door.

She answers in her nightdress. Her hair drifts free from its braid. She holds a lantern before her, is a thing of flicker and glow. Looks at Sherlock, all sorrow: _It’s come to this?_

_Molly. Please._

She understands, bless her, and presses her palm to his face. _Poor raven. You want being smart to be enough._

_You’ll do it? Promise me._

_I promise, Sherlock._

He nods his thanks and turns before he can lose his nerve. Stands at the edge of the lane and calls, _Snow Queen! I would speak with you!_

The cold hits. He forces his arms to stay at his sides and watches his breath float away from him as the carriage approaches, crackling like pond ice. The carriage rests before him; the Snow Queen drifts from it, crimson lips amused.

 _I do hope it’s important, Sherlock,_ she says. _I am a rather busy woman. What have you to tell me?_

Sherlock swallows. _I am beaten._


	8. Body

_Delightful,_ says the Snow Queen. _Shall I expect you at my palace, then?_

_Lift the spell first. You can’t expect me to make the journey like this._

The Snow Queen’s eyes glimmer, a fox’s, fierce and feral. _You lost the bet. I’ll not bargain with you, Sherlock._

Sherlock grimaces. _Mercy. I beg you._ Each word grinds bitter across his tongue.

 _That’s one,_ the Snow Queen says, and takes her leave, her carriage loud as a hailstorm.

Sherlock gasps as the night’s warmth returns. The northbound path unfolds, his for the reading; he knows, from the moonlit signs they left behind, all those who have gone before him.

*

 _No,_ says John. His leg throbs.

Molly’s cottage is urns and herbs, wood rafters hung with dried plants and dirt floors scored with broom trails. A sleek silver tom sleeps on her lap, stretched in a patch of sun; she buries her fingers in his fur, and he purrs. 

_I’m so sorry,_ she says, scratching under the tom’s chin. _He was restless, you know how he gets. We went for a walk by the falls, and he wouldn’t—I told him not to get so close to the edge, but he—I’m so sorry._

John doesn’t want to believe her. But it would be just like Sherlock, wouldn’t it: leaving neither a goodbye nor a body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chunk of poem stuck in my head while I was writing:
> 
> "On this road  
> on which I do not know how to ask for bread,  
> on which I do not know how to ask for water,  
> this path  
> inventing itself  
> through jungles of burnt flesh, ground of ground  
> bones, crossing itself  
> at the odor of blood, and stumbling on,
> 
> I long for the mantle  
> of the great wanderers, who lighted  
> their steps by the lamp  
> of pure hunger and pure thirst,
> 
> and whichever way they lurched was the way."
> 
> \--Galway Kinnell, "The Book of Nightmares"


	9. Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear it to the gods old and new: there would have been no day nine if not for Saathi, Ori, Captain Fangirl, and Grim. You gave me John, and I thank you from the bottom of my caffeinated little heart.
> 
> Also, the roses are a part of the original story, and incredibly, I did not include them (entirely) for my own gratification.

John feels storm clouds gathering behind his solar plexus, so he nods goodbye to Molly and limps home.

 _You never use that blasted cane when we’re on a case,_ says Sherlock-with-him-always. _Throw it out. You obviously don’t need it._

 _And you never use cocaine when we’re on a case,_ John thinks, _so you obviously don’t need it. Throw it out, hmm?_

John growls deep in his throat. Sherlock sulks.

There wasn’t a body.

John leans his cane by the door and cleans his wound (superficial, healing, stings like a bastard) and survives until bedtime without incident.

The next morning, he rises, dresses, and makes tea for two. He takes a deep breath. Then another. He shimmies open the kitchen window, launches one cup into the garden, and slams the frame shut.

Crying is not something he does so much as something that happens to him.

He sleeps. He rises. He dresses. It’s a week before he gets farther than the living room.

Summer passes in a haze. He spends most of it at Molly’s; he loses weeks to preparing the dead. Protecting them from a passing without ritual.

There wasn’t a body.

He and the silver tom reach an accord; John sits with him in Molly’s garden. There are no roses here, but John smells the amaranthus and thinks, _Still. Beautiful._


	10. Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You’re pure as the driven snow,_ John had teased Sherlock when first they’d courted.
> 
> Well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for destinationtoast! <3

The breakfast dishes clink in the washbucket as Molly scrubs them clean. She passes them to John, who dries them with a coarse towel as he says, _I was..._ Struggles. Starts again. _I thought I might do it today. Now, maybe._

Molly gives him the last bowl. _Do you want company?_

_No. I... no._ John clears his throat. _But thank you._

It’s a quiet walk home. He surveys his flowers, asking himself which one says _grief,_ says _Sherlock,_ and breaks off one of the white Tamoras: prickly bastards, pale and layered.

_You’re pure as the driven snow,_ John had teased Sherlock when first they’d courted.

Well. 

He takes the blossom into the house, sits at the battle-scarred kitchen table, and whispers into the rose, _Sherlock Holmes._

Now to swallow the name and the grief, the ritual to acknowledge _this loss will bloom in me for all my days._

He pulls petals from the green star of stem beneath the blossom. Smooth and soft between his fingertips, crisp and tough between his teeth: he rolls them against the roof of his mouth, moves them around like memories. 

_Sentiment, John._

_Yes, love._

The rose oil lingers on his tongue well into the night. With each inhalation, John tastes it as though for the first time as sleep eludes him in his too-quiet bed.


	11. Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Grim for John's autumn, and to aderyn for telling me to write down the first-thing-in-the-morning words. I would say I don't know where I would be without brilliant poets in my life, but I know exactly where I would be: in bed, asleep, dreaming of the wrong season.

Autumn darkles the edges of the world: draws down the days, delays the dawn. Leaves burn to ash and the smoke suffuses all the air.

John walks at night, brushing beads of condensation from his oatmeal jumper. He treasures the chill on his exposed face. Chases away the wolves prowling the edges of the village ( _not my pack,_ he thinks): shouts and stones, memory rioting bloody around them. His shoulder aches.

He is most useful, he thinks, in the dark.

 _Because you conduct the light,_ says the sliver of waning moon.

Sherlock is gone and yet the world speaks his words.

 _There wasn’t a body,_ John tells the moon-sliver as he patrols his way home.

 _I see across vast lands, but I did not see him fall,_ says the moon.

 _My currents run fast and slow and all to the sea, but they did not carry him,_ adds the river from its bed.

 _Our roots grow deep into the ground to drink the water under the water, but they did not find him,_ whisper the roses.

John closes the cottage door behind him, weaves through the shadows to the bedroom, rolls between the sheets undressed. Remembers Sherlock there.

 _I don’t believe you’re dead,_ John says, face serious, to Sherlock’s side of the bed. _I’ll find you, love. I’ll bring you back._


	12. Black

John marches north for a fortnight. He blisters in his boots. Then calluses. 

He doesn’t bring his cane.

His clothes have an animal smell about them.

The last hamlet was days ago; it’s been conifers and owls and scat since. Every night he scavenges deadfall to build a fire. Every morning he kicks dirt over the ashes. A few times he finds fox prints in the dust, around his pack, over his hide blanket. 

He’s not alone in the forest, now.

The rustling to his right could be deer. Or hedgehog. Or snake. Most of the movement here isn’t his.

But a young soldier doesn’t get to be an old soldier hearing deer, and John feels himself an old soldier. He lifts each boot and sets it on the tapestry of spent needles, consistent, deliberate. Scents air. Seems unassuming.

By the time that John knows of the woman, she is behind him and her blade before him. Her arms pin his arms; her legs push his from under him. Her knife against his beard, the metal cold. His blood is too far away to feel it but his blood is so close, so close.

_The raven or the queen?_

John says nothing.

_I will be answered, soldier man. Which do you serve: the ice woman, or the man in black?_


	13. Boy

_The ice woman changed my love,_ John pants, _and I’ve come to change him back._

His pulse fights against metal. His knees ache on the cold ground. The truth will or won’t be enough.

The knife relents. _I’m called Sarah,_ the woman says. _Help me build the fire._

Sarah’s tall boots and tanned hides and at least three truly wicked knives. John approves, thinks longingly of Maery.

 _Were you wanting a meal?_ she asks, once the fire’s strong.

_Please._

_Best make it, then._

John grins and rifles through his pack.

They settle close to the fire with their food, the wind rustling the branches overhead.

 _No one moves north this time of year,_ Sarah tells him between bites of dried venison. Her blue eyes are bright in her wind-chapped face. _But before you, there was the raven, him with the great flapping coat and the great flapping mouth, and before him, the Snow Queen, her with the smile so chill you’d rather fall through the ice than feel it. Both of ’em dressed dark as midnight, haulin’ like the hound of hell was after ’em, and now here’s yourself sniffing around my forest. Stood to reason you’d be the hound, soldier man._

John smiles. _I’m no hound, but I think I know your raven._

 _No hound,_ Sarah agrees. _You're a wolf, boy._


	14. Break

Sherlock travels north for three days before he finds someone to buy from. The fox-faced actor will sell to him, has heard of his cases. He refuses Sherlock’s coins: he owes him, he says. Wishes him the joy of the coming fall.

Sherlock, incurious, takes the cork from the vial and fills the syringe and finds the vein. The actor’s grin seems distant as Sherlock flutters to the ground. _What is,_ Sherlock slurs, and the actor says, _The Snow Queen sends her love._

Autumn has turned the world to gold, then to flame, then to ash by the time he wakes. 

He lies in a clearing to the south of an evergreen forest. He smells dead grass and muddy gravel and, fainter, pine. His clothes fit wrong, so loose. His bones are wrong in his skin, jagged, sharp. 

John. Oh, John.

He forces himself to his feet. Feels a fragile thing, something a wind would crumble. His voice hoarse: _Snow Queen!_

Her carriage; her cold; her smile crackling smug. _Hello, Sherlock. Pity you were delayed._

 _Mercy,_ he begs. _I can’t—take me with you, please. I can’t journey on my own._

 _Oh, Sherlock. How I look forward to watching you prove yourself wrong,_ she says, and melts behind the pines.

Sherlock grimaces, and wipes his hand over his face, and doesn’t break.


	15. Bed

At the forest’s northern boundary, Sarah sends John on his way with a horse, stout and shaggy in its winter coat. The wind blows loose snow over the steppe; heaps of powder gather against clumps of dried grass. Clouds stack grey in the sky, vertiginous things, dense with power.

Each night, John knocks dirt and snow from the horse’s hooves, brushes away its tangles, murmurs into the sweet, musty smell of its coat. The horse blinks its liquid eyes and, one night, noses through John’s pack to eat the paper cone of sugar hidden there. 

_You little shit,_ John scolds when he wakes to the mess, but the horse hears his affection, so it’s no use.

Then it’s too cold for the horse, so John sends it back south, sorry to lose its steady company.

Then it’s too cold for John, but there’s nothing he can do but press on, press on. It’s been he doesn’t know how many days of wind and grass and clouds he might fall into when he finds the cabin in twilight and collapses there. Knocks from the ground, and the door, blessed thing, opens.

 _Oh, dear,_ says the old woman standing over him. _At least you don’t look quite so bad as the last one. Come in, love, and help me make up the bed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look: [John's horse!](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/IcelandicHorseInWinter.jpg)


	16. Bit

For three nights, Mrs. Hudson feeds him and frets over him and fills him in on Sherlock’s story _(You’ve every cause for your anger, sweetling, but his heart’s broke under that spell and that’s the holy truth)_ and the way to the Snow Queen’s palace _(Walk north, and when you come to the ice wastes, pray.)_

Dawn washes the stars from the sky one by one, turns the world’s lines crisp and bright: John should go. He stacks the pelts he slept under at the foot of the bed. 

_How can I thank you?_

_You said you were a healer. I’ve a hip._

_It’d be my honor._

Mrs. Hudson settles at the edge of a chair. John kneels at her feet, presses his hands over her woolen skirt gently, gently. Feels the burst bursae, the ghost of the blow that broke them.

_Your husband?_

_Aye. Did for him myself, and not a jury of wives would convict me._

John nods grim admiration. _This should tingle, but tell me if there’s pain._ He closes his eyes, breathes. Channels the let-me-mend-it that beats fierce in his core. It flows from him, a balm of spruce and wool, metal and honey, tannin and rose. 

Mrs. Hudson sighs. _Oh, love. There’s gunpowder in you, isn’t there?_

John blinks, meets her shrewd blue eyes. _A bit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John-the-doctor, with love for aderyn, and for anyone who wants for healing tonight.


	17. Bird

The world is snow and sky, sky and snow. There is neither day nor night: only changeless glare, as though seeing the sun from beneath a pond froze solid. Sherlock slaps ice and fights for air until he finds it’s ground he’s pressing, air he’s in.

He is not, he thinks, very well.

Sherlock feels John pressed along his back, thorn-scratched arm draped over Sherlock’s fragile ribs. Feels the warm, vigilant energy of him, lets himself go sleepy-safe at its side. Takes John’s hand, holds it to his lips.

Tastes his own glove. Leather. The mineral tang of melted ice.

 _Snow Queen,_ Sherlock whispers. _Mercy. Please._

This time, he hears stilettos, fabric over frozen ground.

The Snow Queen crouches over him, pale fur hood framing her appraising gaze. _Three. Good, Sherlock. Very good._

He wakes in a soft robe in a soft bed in a sumptuous room. Every hue drawn from sunset glinting on snow.

His eyes are his own. His heart.

His smile hurts his face, but it’s perfect, perfect.

He’s rifling through drawers for traveling clothes, his pulse John-John-John, when the Snow Queen drifts in. Leans on the armoire. _What’s your hurry?_

_Let me go._

_Now? Oh, Sherlock. Never._

Sherlock fights his panic. _Why?_

The Snow Queen’s admiration is a thing of scarlet and gall. _You’re a danger, clever bird._


	18. Battalion

John trusts Mrs. Hudson to his bones, but prayers don't always go answered, and the ice wastes are far from his gods, far away from any oak.

 _Snow Queen,_ he calls; then, because names have power, _I’ve come for Sherlock Holmes._

The palace reveals itself one arched window, one spun-glass spire at a time. The doors swing open untouched and the Snow Queen strides through them, lips and boots crimson bursts against the stark birch-white of her cloak and dress.

_I must confess, Doctor Watson, you surprise me._

John crosses his arms. _Sherlock. Let him go._

_Impossible, I’m afraid. He lost--_

_\--the bet. I heard. You win. Bully for you. Now let him go._

_He could endanger my plans, Doctor Watson._

_He could. But I’ve a short temper, a loaded gun, and nothing but time. Let. Him. Go._

The Snow Queen tilts her head. _You don’t frighten me, Doctor. You can’t have him._

John thinks. Hears Sherlock’s voice in his head, decrying sentiment. _You must love someone._

 _Irrelevant,_ the Snow Queen counters, but no: he struck a nerve.

 _Imagine,_ John insists. _If you were trapped. If your love were pleading with Sherlock in the cold. Please. Please let us have each other._

The Snow Queen sighs. Waves John toward the door. _Sherlock is lucky. You, John, are a one-man battalion._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to [captfangirl](http://captfangirl.tumblr.com) for getting me thinking about John and prayers. I am grateful.


	19. Belongs

From the first stare they share (and oh, John’s face is a bonfire in winter, is stitches for a wound), they agree to silence. No words, not where they would freeze solid, shatter over ground.

Their footsteps are loud in the palace, the wastes. When they see only steppe, Sherlock flies into John, presses his face to John's neck, and tells John’s skin, _You didn’t believe Molly._

Sherlock feels a glove on his cheek. John rumbles, _Didn’t want to. Now up. We need to make Mrs. Hudson’s before dark._

Mrs. Hudson feeds them _(thin as rails, the pair of you)_ and helps John wrangle Sherlock near the fire _(it’s holy, what this man does, so hush, and if you say your body’s "mere transport" again, I’ll make more work for him, so I will.)_

Nude, Sherlock settles into the soft furs beneath him. He feels himself a thing of bruise and bone; he gasps at John’s hands folding around his foot.

 _You’re more frostbite than flesh,_ John grouses. Sherlock tastes burnt gunpowder and sulphur on the back of his tongue; when John sees his expression, they become pine needles and black tea and honey. _Temper. Sorry._

John moves slow, methodic. Listens to each wound, gives it a safe space to heal. Sherlock floats, fire-warm, tended to: with John, where he belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so close! I'm trying to get at least a day ahead so I'll have a little time to plan the tale that comes next (this one won't take all thirty days, in part because we've just about reached the end of the original story, and in part because I don't have the heart to make changes that would put these two chuckleheads through any more trouble.) My fiercest and warmest gratitude to all of you who have shared your enthusiasm and encouragement. You're why I'm here.


	20. Breath

John fixes frostbite and fever; scrapes and scratches; blisters, bruises, a broken rib. Teases, _Too bad I’m powerless over your personality._ Sherlock lands a desultory kick.

The next morning, Mrs. Hudson gifts them provisions and solemn face-pats. _Come back come summer, my boys. Now begone, and be good._

Their nights: the steppe, the stars, the bone-white tobacco-brown amaranthus-red moon. Curled close, Sherlock tells John of the journey north; John quiets his rage and tightens his arms. 

_The wolves haven’t bothered us,_ John says instead, and Sherlock says, half asleep, _They know you’re one of them._

The world’s white when they come to the forest. John hugs Sarah _(I see you found your raven, wolf boy)_ and returns the horse’s nuzzle _(he’s not bit you yet? He likes you)_ and apologises for Sherlock, who sulks fit to melt the snow. 

They walk. They walk. Then, when they’ve given up hope of it: the clearing. The path. A village (from which one Richard Brook finds himself scrambling), the path, _their_ village.

A stop at Molly’s, which garners them an apologetic hug for John and a relieved one (after a slap) for Sherlock, and then home, oh, home.

Far away north, a clever queen wraps herself around her sleeping lover, her awe rising, exhales on a winter’s night, with the woman’s every breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more, and then on to a new tale...!


	21. Bees

Summer, glorious summer. The lazy drone of the hive; the sticky-sweet stream of its honey. Blossoms blaze through the garden. John yanks thorns from his palms with his teeth.

Sherlock should be thinking about his case and its redheads, but his attention wings its way to John, to calluses, to spots that feel or don’t, and stays in stubborn orbit. 

He abandons his study for the roses. Interrupts John’s greeting: _What you did for me. That was--that was good. But I’m, ah--_

 _A bit not good?_ John teases. 

_John, please._ John sets down his shears, stands. Tilts his head and folds his arms. _I would do the same for you, you know that, but I don’t--I can’t--share your facility with sentiment. I will never feel for you as you feel for me._

But I do feel for you, Sherlock thinks, desperate; pictures presenting John his poor emotions, a tumble of hard and hollow things (bones-feathers-his waxing waning unobservable heart).

 _Where on earth,_ John starts, then: _Oh, Sherlock._ He steps into the space between them, enfolds Sherlock safe. Sherlock drops his head to John’s shoulder, feels fingers soothing the dark wings of his curls. _Shh. I know you, love. I know._

For Sherlock, here, now, there is only John, and the scent of the roses, and the knowing flights of the bees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, my eyes are about crossed from staring at the words, but we made it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for The Snow Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/816467) by [moonblossom graphics (moonblossom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonblossom/pseuds/moonblossom%20graphics)
  * [Yuletide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/885054) by [ShinySherlock ficlets (ShinySherlock)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinySherlock/pseuds/ShinySherlock%20ficlets)
  * [Borders](https://archiveofourown.org/works/916915) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)
  * [Birch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/915682) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)
  * [Balsam](https://archiveofourown.org/works/916115) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)
  * [Sugar & Oak](https://archiveofourown.org/works/987799) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)
  * [Little Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/999738) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)
  * [Mend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092097) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn)




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